RSSHub

RSSHub is an open-source, community-driven RSS feed generator that transforms virtually any website into a standard RSS feed. With over 5,000 routes covering platforms like TikTok, Weibo, Bilibili, YouTube, Spotify, Instagram, and hundreds of other sources, it solves the problem of content fragmentation by bringing walled-garden platforms back into the open, decentralized RSS ecosystem.

Built with TypeScript and Node.js, RSSHub’s architecture is designed for both scale and extensibility. Each supported source is an isolated, community-contributed route with declarative metadata, making it straightforward for developers to add new feed sources without touching core infrastructure. The project operates the world’s largest RSS network, with over 5,000 public instances processing hundreds of millions of requests per month.

RSSHub pairs seamlessly with its companion ecosystem: the RSSHub Radar browser extension automatically detects subscribable feeds on any page you visit, while mobile clients RSSBud (iOS) and RSSAid (Android) enable feed discovery on the go. The Folo AI RSS reader integrates natively, providing summarization and modern reading workflows on top of RSSHub’s feed infrastructure.

Deployment is flexible — Docker Compose for self-hosted instances, Cloudflare Workers for serverless zero-maintenance deployments, Vercel for edge hosting, or the official hosted service at rsshub.app. An optional Redis cache layer dramatically reduces upstream request rates and improves response times for high-traffic instances.

What You Get

• 5,000+ Community-Maintained Routes - Pre-built feed scrapers for TikTok, Bilibili, Weibo, Zhihu, Spotify, Twitter, YouTube, Pixiv, Instagram, Telegram, and hundreds of other platforms, each maintained by the open-source community.
• RSSHub Radar Browser Extension - Automatically maps any webpage you visit to its corresponding RSSHub route, generating one-click subscribe links without requiring manual URL construction.
• Multi-Target Deployment Bundles - Production-ready builds for Node.js servers, Cloudflare Workers (serverless), Vercel edge functions, and containerized environments — all compiled from the same TypeScript codebase.
• Redis Caching Layer - Optional Redis integration that caches feed responses with configurable TTLs, dramatically reducing upstream request rates and protecting against rate-limiting for high-traffic instances.
• Realistic Browser Fingerprinting - Built-in header-generator integration produces platform-appropriate browser headers (Chrome, Safari, Firefox) to bypass anti-scraping measures without requiring a full headless browser for most routes.
• OpenAPI Documentation - Auto-generated, interactive API documentation powered by Scalar and Zod-OpenAPI, making every route programmatically discoverable with full parameter schemas.
• Observability Stack - Native integration with OpenTelemetry, Sentry, Honeybadger, and Prometheus for metrics, distributed tracing, and error monitoring on self-hosted instances.
• Access Control & Anti-Hotlink - Built-in middleware for API key authentication, path-based access restrictions, and anti-hotlink protection to secure self-hosted deployments.

Common Use Cases

• Following creators across locked platforms - A content consumer subscribes to TikTok profiles, Bilibili channels, and Weibo accounts through a single RSS reader without needing platform accounts or enduring algorithmic feeds.
• Monitoring Chinese-language communities - A researcher subscribes to Zhihu questions, Douban discussions, and V2EX threads via RSS to track technology and cultural trends in Mandarin-speaking communities.
• Aggregating technical content - A developer combines GitHub releases, npm package updates, Hacker News threads, and developer blog feeds into a unified reading queue using RSSHub routes.
• Tracking music and entertainment - A music enthusiast receives RSS notifications when new tracks are added to Spotify playlists, when favorite artists release albums, or when Bilibili uploaders post new videos.
• Building a personal news dashboard - A power user combines RSSHub feeds with the Folo AI reader for summarization, creating a personalized news digest from dozens of sources without visiting individual platforms.
• Private team content monitoring - A social media team runs a self-hosted RSSHub instance with access controls to monitor competitor accounts, track industry news, and aggregate platform content for internal briefings.

Under The Hood

Architecture RSSHub follows a layered middleware-composition pattern built on Hono, where a linear pipeline of cross-cutting concerns — logging, tracing, error reporting, access control, anti-hotlinking, parameter processing, and caching — is applied globally before requests reach route handlers. The route registry performs dynamic directory import across 1,600+ namespaces, each structured as a pure data object with declarative metadata including path patterns, radar mappings, handler functions, and feature flags. This separation between route metadata and execution logic enables schema-driven OpenAPI generation and the radar discovery system without coupling routing concerns to handler behavior. The multi-target compilation strategy compiles the same TypeScript source into distinct bundles for Node.js, Cloudflare Workers, Vercel, and containerized deployments, with platform-specific state management (Redis vs. KV vs. in-memory) injected at the cache utility layer rather than hardcoded in route handlers.

Tech Stack Node.js 24 runtime serves as the foundation with Hono as the HTTP framework, selected for its first-class support for Cloudflare Workers and edge environments. Zod-OpenAPI validates request parameters and generates OpenAPI 3.1 schemas automatically from route definitions, with Scalar rendering the interactive API reference. TypeScript is enforced throughout with tsdown handling multi-target bundling for Node.js, Workers, Vercel, and container builds. Redis provides the primary caching backend with in-memory fallback for lightweight deployments. The header-generator library synthesizes realistic browser fingerprints (Chrome, Safari, Firefox) to bypass anti-scraping measures at the HTTP utility layer. Vitest handles unit and integration testing, while Playwright via Cloudflare’s containerized browser infrastructure handles JavaScript-heavy routes. OpenTelemetry, Sentry, Honeybadger, and Prometheus deliver comprehensive observability.

Code Quality Vitest test coverage is extensive for the middleware and utility layers, with tests covering the cache middleware, access control, parameter processing, header generation, and error handling — though route handlers are explicitly excluded from coverage requirements given the community-maintained scale of 1,600+ routes. Custom typed error classes (NotFoundError, RejectError, RequestInProgressError, ConfigNotFoundError) provide consistent error semantics, and the centralized error handler integrates with Sentry and Honeybadger for production observability. TypeScript is enforced throughout the infrastructure layers, though individual route handlers frequently use implicit any types in their handler signatures, reflecting the practical trade-off between contributor friendliness and strict typing. ESLint with a custom plugin ecosystem and Prettier enforce formatting consistency, and CI validates tests on every push with Codecov coverage tracking.

What Makes It Unique RSSHub’s defining innovation is the bidirectional radar system: each route declares URL patterns that the companion browser extension uses to automatically match arbitrary web pages to their corresponding RSS routes, effectively transforming any URL a user visits into a subscribable feed without manual configuration. This coupling between a server-side route registry and a client-side discovery mechanism is genuinely novel in the RSS tooling ecosystem. The project’s approach to anti-bot mitigation is also distinctive — rather than defaulting to resource-intensive headless browsers, RSSHub embeds the header-generator library to produce statistically realistic browser fingerprints at the HTTP client layer, handling the majority of anti-scraping scenarios with negligible overhead. The multi-target compilation architecture, producing functionally identical behavior across Node.js, Cloudflare Workers, Vercel edge, and container environments from a single codebase, demonstrates sophisticated platform abstraction design.

Self-Hosting

RSSHub is released under the GNU Affero General Public License version 3 (AGPL-3.0). The AGPL is a strong copyleft license that permits commercial use and modification, but with an important condition for self-hosters: if you run a modified version of RSSHub as a network service accessible to others, you must make the modified source code available under the same license. For internal-only deployments serving only your own team or organization, this constraint is less impactful, but organizations building commercial products or services on top of a modified RSSHub should consult legal counsel before proceeding.

Running RSSHub yourself requires a Node.js 24 environment or Docker. For most teams, Docker Compose deployment using the official image is the practical path — the official documentation covers configuration via environment variables for Redis, API access keys, request timeouts, and route-specific credentials (API keys for YouTube, Twitter, and other authenticated services). Infrastructure requirements are modest for personal or small team use, but instances serving high request volumes benefit significantly from Redis caching and may need rate-limit consideration for upstream platforms. There is no automated update mechanism; you are responsible for monitoring upstream releases and updating your deployment, managing backups of any Redis state, and handling incidents. Cloudflare Workers deployment shifts operational burden to the platform but introduces limitations on long-running requests and stateful operations.

Compared to the official hosted instance at rsshub.app, self-hosting provides full control over access, caching behavior, and the ability to configure credentials for authenticated routes (some platforms require your own API keys). However, you forgo the community’s shared maintenance of the hosted service, which benefits from collective monitoring and rapid incident response. There is no paid enterprise tier, dedicated support contract, or SLA — support is community-driven via GitHub Issues and the Telegram group. For teams requiring guaranteed uptime or compliance guarantees, the operational burden of self-hosting without any managed offering is a meaningful consideration.